One of the major factors affecting the choice of web hosting packages is the operating system. It’s similar to your desktop computer, i.e. as your desktop system runs probably Microsoft Windows as the operating system, or maybe an Apple Mac OS, web servers also run an operating system. The operating systems used in hosting, however, include either Windows or UNIX. The major variant of UNIX is called Linux.

The majority of web sites hosted on the internet are on Unix servers, but there’s a sufficient number that goes for Windows hosting serves as well. The need of Windows hosting is actually the ultimate result of rapid growth of of powerful and complex sites and web applications.

One misconception that almost all beginners and to some extent others as well have that that web masters using a Windows PC must use a Windows based hosting plan. This is very easy to decide, i.e. Unix plan is best for a simple site but if you’re to build a site using Active Server Pages, .NET or plug into a Microsoft Access or SQL database, you need Windows hosting..